MY HOBBIES AND STUDIES

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Monday, July 31, 2017

Unfortunately, I'm afraid to say the population of enthusiastic fans of SW DX and MW DX etc. has been shrinking here in Japan. However, some Japanese DXer groups are still conducting their activities enthusiastically with cutting edge DXing techniques for all bands.
Let me introduce one of nice Japanese DXing groups to my foreign guests who visited to my blogs. The Totsuka DXers Circle (TDXC) has published its annual journal called "PROPAGATION" every August since 2013. Most of articles are written in Japanese but you can understand or imagine what is written about in each page if you are a DXer too. Many topics related to DXing are condensed in each article :) You can download them "free" from the TDXC representative Hiroo Nakagawa's HP(http://my-bcl-life.sakura.ne.jp/PROPAGATION.htm). I have joined this group since 2016 and I could contribute articles for the journal of Edition 4 and 5.
At the first glance, you eyes would be grabbed by a beautiful Ukiyoe-like illustration in the front page of the journal. These fabulous pictures can depicts that these magazine are published from Japanese DXers. One of TDXC members, Shinya Hasegawa who is a professional animator draws these wonderful pictures.
To dear foreign DXers, any comments regarding to these journals are welcome. We have enjoyed broadcasting DXing each other even though we live in different countries. We have experienced trans-national understanding through listening SW, MW-DX stations. We can easily communicate each other with Internet in this wonderful era. Why don't we exchange our wonderful DXing experiences ?

Sunday, November 20, 2016

Do you know sea gain for MW reception ? The sea gain is the additional signal gain when one or both terminals is situated near the sea, but
it does not apply to propagation over fresh water.
Therefore, You can enjoy MW DXing much better at a sea cliff or a sea coast than that in inland area.
The sea gain was found long time ago by P.Knight, a researcher of BBC around 1975 and the sea gain was defined with some formulas in theITU-R recommendation P.1147-4 (Click)
" Prediction of sky-wave field strength at frequencies between about 150 and 1700 kHz". The sea gain depends on the distance between transmitting point and receiving point and frequencies. The graph below is an extract from the ITU-R recommendation. The curve A is for MW band. For MW DXing, the propagation distance would be more than 6000 km then the sea gain is expected about 10 dB. This means your S-meter goes up about 3 scales(I mean when your S-meter indicates S-1 at a inland area, you can expect S-4 signal at a cliff or a coast.) You should not ignore this effect for much better MW DXing.

Some papers written by P.Knight et al of BBC are downloadable. The clickable links are as follows.

written by John Plimmer from South Africa who is one of famous MW DX information web site DXing info Community. ((http://www.dxing.info/)

The following video shows some reception scenes of KKOL (Seattle) on 1300 kHz at a cliff in Chiba, Japan on Sep.22 2016. The audio clips and pictures are provided for my blog by one of MW Japanese DXers, Sawapon (Sawapon is his nickname.) Sawapon's blog(Japanese) ishere (click).. We conducted a DXpedition with other MW DXers on the same day. The signal of KKOL propagating 7700km from Seattle was received well even with a portable MW radio thanks to the sea gain.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

This movie "In this Corner of the World " that was supported by crowd funding of this cartoon fan including me, has been just released on Nov. 12, 2016. Most of movie theater seemed to be full yesterday. As one of supporting fan, my name is listed at the end credit of this movie. This anime depicts ordinary people's life in Hiroshima during the Second World War through the life of heroine "Suzu". This movie was made with accurate historical investigation by the movie staffs including the director Sunao Katabuchi. This investigation gives the anime strong powers of persuasion.

This movie doesn't insist on vigorous opposition to the war in us directly and dramatically. This movie just shows us the life of people in laughs, sadness and loves simply with good tempo in about 120 minutes. I was never bored at all. The color of each scene and each expression of characters in this movie was so excellent and impressive.

During the movie, to be honest, I sobbed. I could mull the life of people during the war in the past comparing to my life over in my mind. It is difficult to explain my feelings with words, but I was watching this movie remembering the spent days with my grand mother and grand father in the countryside. Other audience were also sobbed too, but we felt hopes, happiness and warmness at the last scene of this movie.

After the movie I felt that I was standing in this "little" corner of the world that had been made by ordinary people who live in the past.

I hope this movie will be introduced to all over the world in appropriate languages. I recommend all of my foreign friends to watch this movie to understand Japanese ordinary people's life in the past and Japanese heart that has been passed down calmly from our ancestors to us who are living in the present world.

Ａ support member meeting in Tokyo with the production staff of this movie on Aug.4 in 2015